ABSTRACT
Detritus, dened as any source of nonliving organic matter (Swift et al. 1979), is considered the basal trophic level of many food webs (Lindeman 1942; Teal 1962; Odum 1969; Moore et al. 2004) and is an important component of recycling energy and nutrients in ecosystems (Swift et al. 1979; Hättenschwiler et al. 2005; Moore and Schindler 2008; Barton et al. 2013a, b). Given this importance, the decomposition of detritus has been intensively studied for many years with reviews and empirical studies providing ample evidence that this process is fundamental to ecosystem properties through complex ecological linkages (Swift et al. 1979; Hättenschwiler and Gasser 2005; Parmenter and MacMahon 2009; Gessner et al. 2010). By far, the most studied portion of the detrital pool has been phototrophically derived sources of nonliving organic matter (e.g. abscised leaves, grass, or decaying algae). Indeed, studies of leaf litter continue to provide fundamental understanding of the regulation of ecosystem processes such as nutrient and energy cycling, community interactions, and food web network stability and resilience (Hawlena et al. 2012; Jabiol et al. 2014; Majdi et al. 2014). Although it is vital to understand the decomposition of phototrophically derived aspects of ecosystems, there has been relatively limited research attention on the heterotrophically derived component of the detrital pool-carrion (Figure 1.1).
